I saw a skunk today, its once magnificent striped tail, harbinger of deathly smells, separated from its body and lying several feet away - like some clip-on party favour unceremoniously discarded when the party went south. "It's all fun and games until someone loses a tail". The body of the skunk wasn't quite flattened yet, its skin mostly intact keeping its nasty bits from spilling out over the roadway. The life had clearly gone from the body though - anyone who has ever looked closely upon death can easily tell if something is alive or not, whether or not the insides are out. Those movies where the characters are shocked to find out that someone in fact isn't actually dead? Pure farce. A once-living thing, deprived of its life breath, is most obviously a shell of its former self - not even representative of the sleeping or comatose version of whatever being it once was.
If you're paying attention you can tell when a plant is dying. If you've seen it before, you can see cancer in a dog without being told it's sick. The body knows it's not well and tells you, and there's no mistaking it. Hypochondriacs need only remember that when you're body is telling you something, it's not going to be vague about it.
I saw a 'possum today, completely intact, but with a red and blue and grey stain where the head once was. Its fur wavered in the light breeze, tail snaked out behind it like a piece of rope.
Some things sneak up on you though, some things fly beneath the body's defense system's radar and there's nothing you can do about them. My uncle recently went in to hospital for back pain, and came out having been told that he has only a few weeks to live. The back pain wasn't the problem, but the x-rays they took to look for the source of the pain showed that cancer was raging rampant throughout his body. He hadn't felt a thing. Within a week, his body started to shut down, and he now knows intimately that the doctors were right.
I saw a squirrel today. It had been run over so many times on the highway that the only way I could tell it had once been a squirrel was by the size of its entrail pile, flattened and blended beyond recognition by so many Michelins, Firestones, and Road Kings.
I remember the road kill I saw because it was yesterday. I haven't seen my uncle since last fall, and can't remember what he looks like. I hadn't seen him for probably 20 years before that though, so I'm glad we got to break bread when we did.
